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View outside of my apartment, during a storm.

Lovely forest outside of Mullen.

View outside from office.

Swimming pool in my Beijing home.

Touch Down in Boston, Driving the rental car off of the airport lot

I just can't wait to try Boston's Lobster, so this is the first room service I ordered. It's delicious.

Walking about in downtown, trying to find details on getting an iphone.

Drove up to the dealership to get a car, and on my way back, I decided to drop by and check out my new office. I know the office is a mansion, but I didn't know its in the middle of a forest. Very charming!

This is it, I feel like... I'm in an X-men movie.

The Car.

Newly signed apartment, a bit out of my budget, but I loved it too much to pass on.

The furniture arrived soon after...

I got a blister already at this point...

Two blisters...

By the time I finished with the bed and took this out, its already 12 midnight, I'm absolutely exhausted

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West Elm furniture... they are more difficult to assemble than Ikeas... Three blisters.

Continued work pays off the next day, now just waiting for the electronics.

I love Bravia (think it was because of their ads) and I am absolutely impressed with digital signals, its like watching people acting in my room.

Enjoying my first night.. stress free...

America, I missed you...

Click here to view, comments are welcomed.

Polaroid of the week this week is of Lili and Bobo, in NanLuoGu Xiang, Beijing.

Dear Friends

On July 5th I will leave China and head to Boston for a new job. I'm due to start on July 15th, so I am sorry that I couldn't have time to hang out with all of you and bit a proper farewell. During the 3 and half years here, I have met many amazing people and traveled to many places, Beijing has certainly made its mark in my heart and my feeling towards it is very special. I've got many people to thank and smile towards, and you don't have to worry, I remember all of you guys. Something tells me that this won't be the last time for me to live and work here. I will elaborate more on my move as time progresses but for now, I must get back to packing.

Stay excited. Stay patient. Stay curious. Stay fit. Don't surrender your self for money, Cars and flats aren't as important as you think they are. Travel the world, meet strangers, and find your TRUE love. Because, You Only Live Once!

On June 9th, my best friend Miki Nozawa gave birth to a healthy adorable little girl. Congratulations Miyu Nakamura, you're certainly one lucky girl being born into such a nice family, I will visit you soon.

When I first Saw Amy Stein's work I thought she's a nature photographer who got together some fancy motion sensing equipment and shot these amazing photos. Then I realized some of them just have to be posed long enough for the exposure to work at night. Then I read her interview with fecalface I finally realized that these animals are stuffed. Her website is http://www.amysteinphoto.com/ enjoy

Like their style

Their 4th studio album and I'm enjoying it. My favorite is the cover song, lyrics are amazing.

Da Zha Lan before City's more recent glamorous days was a dump, and before people's republic was city's red light district. Now the city pured millions into a revitalization project. I heard a lot about it and decided to pay a visit. When I got close to it, I felt like I'm in Xin Tian Di in Shang Hai, its such a film set, everything is brand spanking new, and... old at the same time. I am happy for Da Zha Lan, this area is in a disparate need for face lift, but to have it completely demolished and turned into a... even older, distant era than before, I question its value and authenticity, for a brief moment I felt the area was not built for me, it no longer belongs to the people that lived in Beijing, its just for tourists, then very quickly I realized, maybe its for both, a reminder for Beijingers as well, as we were deprived of this part of history for so long also.

I was in US when the quake happened. two days after, there are news reports on schools being the only building in certain areas that had collapsed. I forgot which news report it was, but I did remember it was a Chinese news channel. When I came back to Beijing, and continued to follow the news, such news piece weren't mentioned at all, and when I brought that up to some friends, they were suspicious of me, believing in the western media.

Of course I have to admit that not being in the actual areas, I can't say for sure, but today, this news came out on CNN. Of course, for all you sensitive types and conspiracy theorists, its a report from the western news source, read it at your discretion. On Baidu, I do know this: 在绵竹市五福镇,唯一倒塌的建筑是第二小学校舍,造成大约300名学生死亡。(300 students died from the only collapsed building, their school building in the town of Wu Fu, in the City of Mianzhu.) The news piece originated from Reuters and has since been confirmed.

Whatever the case maybe, I hope the media here in China can be even more transparent as they promised to be. Tibet has been a really good lesson for a country with slow reacting media, in which caused a great deal of misunderstanding and deliberate inflammatory reports from the western countries. By keeping stories that suggests spotty school building construction from the public is going backwards and for sure it will attract the same type of scrutiny as the Tibet incident.

Cory brought us to his favorite tea house tonight. One interesting aspect of tea drinking is the relationship between water and tea leaves. Unlike coffee, the leaf releases its flavor bit by bit, so naturally, as the water sit longer, the flavor becomes stronger. The tea drinking etiquette therefore involves an "interim pot" which is called "公壶" (sharing pot). A pot full of tea is poured into this pot first, and then poured into the cups of each drinkers, this eliminates the concern of uneven flavors between the first guest and last guest.

This pot is an interim pot. It only receives brewed tea without leaves. The designer got rid of the lid entirely, and made the entry system on the bottom. the design inside essentially is an upside down funnel, water is pured into the pot and when its flipped, water stays around the funnel and doesn't spill out. To emphasize the design even more, the shape of the pot is made into an lucky peach, a symbol for longevity and long life. I loved this design decision, its one of the few shapes that involves a vertical line. The designer is using it to contrast how the lid, which will require a horizontal line for the cut, is not there. Very clever.

The tea house is on Dong Si Shi Tiao street. near Sony Certified service center.

Ok, another shitty ad. So what am I looking at here exactly? Am I supposed to look at that suit wearing thumb and think its blending into the cloud? or.. Am I supposed to understand god accidentally amputated his hand after seeing him self wearing a cheap suit? Hmm... I wonder how much under the table kick back money this agency has given back to their client.

I watched a student play at Chinese Drama Academy the other day. The play is part of the Sino Greek cultural exchange program. I forgot the exact title of the play, but its about Prometheus being punished by Zeus after he had stolen the fire and gave it to man kind. Creatively speaking, I think everyone in the play, in total about 30 or so students all gave their best performance, but an integral part thats missing is the ability to attract audiences. In the story, various Titans sang different songs to reflect their mood, a pair of happy titans sang the Chinese adaptation of the Smufs theme. That.. although weird, is tolerable. But later on, to reflect a somber mood, the song picked was "How the flowers become such red" a well know communist revolutionary song with a Tajik melody. The song immediately broke audiences mood as it became too obviously comical with it having that heavy political baggage. I did enjoy the performance non the less though. Thanks to Yuanyuan for the invite.

This entire past week has been very... Dusty. Temperature in the the city rose to about 30s and sand from the northwest came in with their usual might. As a city that lacks adequate green belt and bodies of water, Beijing chokes on the sand and suffocates every single year. My throat got infected the day after the sand storm, as usual, nothing is said on tv about this severe weather phenomenon. Scarce land within the city still get zoned into commercial real estate developments instead of building parks and planting trees. Finally on friday, while its still very sandy, Strong gust had swept through the city the day before. Me and Lili took a stroll along Houhai, one of the few lakes in Beijing metro area. The air immediately got better as we got close to the lake. Well, comparatively speaking. "Better" only as in "Hmm, my throat only feels a bout quater of the dirt grains as before I got to the lake".

Some would argue that Beijing has already built new green belts and implemented other methods to combat sand storms, but within Metro areas, I don't think Beijing has put enough thoughts into it. There are barely any parks and greeneries here, The embassy area plus Ri Tan Park is the only bit of large usable green area, which is only less than 25% of Manhattan's Central park. Keep in mind this is the sum of Ri Tan Park AND the embassy area, so the actual usable green space is even less.

I hate sand Storms, I'm sure everyone does, I also hate the fact I have no where to seek clean air except around Houhai. Beijing needs more parks, please spread the word.

Polaroid of the week this week is a shot of a very boxy ice cream truck I saw down in Lower East Side of Manhattan. Its almost cartoon like.

I was working out in my gym yesterday, when I turned on the TV this is what I saw. The usual crappy drama, but this time with my friend in it! Lu's on TV. Playing a virgin too! hahahaha.

An ad that advertises Durex vibrating ring. I'd fire my self if I created this crap.

Lili got a 3-months-old puppy today. Such an adorable dog. His name is Bobo.